wc - mandating use of accrued sick or vacation time

T

I have an ee on wc, they are released to light duty and can only work 4 hrs per day. Can I mandate they use their accrued sick or vacation time to cover the 4 hrs per day missed work?

Thanks.
-t

pork1

T: I would not mandate it, but I would allow the individual who desires to use up Leave and/or sick time awarded for the full 8 hour days! However, make sure your carrier is informed of what you are doing, because they are responsible to ensure the individual receives the full disability payment, regardless of the vacation/sick days, which will not count in our cases toward his disability benefits paid by the carrier.

Hope this helps you.

Pork

T

Thanks, that helps.

-t

LivindonSouth

"T"; your question, if I understand it, is CAN you, not should you or what do I think about it if you do. The answer is, it depends on what the Texas law in that regard is. Comp laws vary from state to state. Texas has some of the oddest regarding comp.

E Wart

First, I am not even sure why you want to require your employee to take the paid time off if they don't want to???
I agree with LivindonSouth. TX has the weirdest W/C laws that are EXTREMELY employee friendly. You need to talk with your W/C carrier to see what is even allowed. Some states (like GA) have temp. partial disability payments which allow an employee to return to work on a part time basis and it reduces (but doesn't eliminate) their W/C indemnity payments. If you pay them time off, it could also mess this up.
Do as much as you can to work with your employee and the W/C carrier to get them back as soon as possible and DON'T under any circumstance make them mad. You will pay in TX.

E Wart

HRinFL

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 09-20-05 AT 09:40AM (CST)[/font][br][br]I agree with The Don. Being ignorant of TX W/C laws, are you running FMLA concurrently with W/C (I don't even know if TX allows this)? If you can, follow your FMLA policy. Do you require ees on FMLA to use any sick/PTO time? This covers the ee with regard to the four hours a day that they are unable to work (can't count against the ee), but it also allows you to start the FMLA clock, protecting you from the ee going out on FMLA after W/C benefits are exhausted (ee reaches MMI, etc.).

The headache is that, depending on the law, you will need to communicate this to your W/C carrier and any adjustments to their benefit would be made. If there is an overpayment, more than likely the reimbursement would be made to the ee's sick bank, because most states will require that the ee not be penalized.